Software monetization has become a key tool for Chinese companies navigating the challenges of global expansion, as they increasingly depend on trust, compliance and sustained local engagement, according to a senior manager at Thales, a global cybersecurity company.

"Chinese companies need to deal with new challenges such as compliance and data sovereignty, intellectual property protection, operational complexity and cultural and usage differences during their overseas expansion," said Damien Bullot, vice-president of Thales Software Monetization.

Bullot made the remarks after the Thales Software Monetization APAC Partner Summit, which was held in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, in early February.

Nearly 60 core channel partners from China, South Korea and South Asia attended the summit to explore new pathways for growth and to maximize channel value.

"These challenges reveal a deeper need for enterprises to operationalize trust, and software monetization is one of the key ways to do it at a global scale," Bullot said.

In his opening speech, Bullot emphasized the company's customer-centric approach, saying Thales is committed to providing secure, flexible and forward-looking software licensing solutions to help enterprises achieve sustainable growth amid global expansion and AI-driven transformation.

"We are seeing a more sophisticated evolution–leading organizations are no longer just exporting hardware, they are exporting a combination of hardware and software, and in some cases, pure software," Bullot added.

By shifting the value from physical devices to the underlying software, Chinese companies are effectively exporting their business models to the global market, he noted.

"This evolution places software monetization at the center, because it governs how software is accessed, used, updated and trusted across borders," he said.

As a vital global hub for hardware manufacturing and innovation, the Asia-Pacific region boasts a mature industrial chain and a vast installed base of devices, according to Bullot.

However, many hardware manufacturers are still in the early stages of software licensing management and monetization strategies, leaving significant long-term value from software-hardware integration untapped.

With the rapid development of new scenarios such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and the low-altitude economy, hardware products are becoming increasingly reliant on secure, flexible and scalable software, he added.

"Effective software licensing management is not just a compliance requirement, but a key engine for manufacturers to enhance their global product competitiveness," he said.